In the past ten years, China's urban construction has developed at an alarming rate, which has opened a new chapter in the history of urban development. The whole of China is like a big construction site, and all kinds of new buildings are constantly emerging. It is very accurate to use the idiom "changing with each passing day" to describe the change of urban appearance. Among the initially formed eastern coastal megacities, there are three most striking areas: the great capital circle with Beijing as the center and facing Bohai Bay and Beijing-Tianjin urban agglomeration; A densely populated area in the Yangtze River Delta with Shanghai as the center, the golden waterway of the Yangtze River as the trunk line, and Shanghai, Nanjing and Hangzhou as the three pillars; Taking Guangzhou as the center, developing axially to Shenzhen and Zhuhai, and integrating Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan into the export-oriented urbanization area of the Pearl River Delta (the above views are quoted from the theme report of Wu et al. at the 1996 Beijing International Conference on Metropolitan Development). These three areas are extremely important in the whole country. In a sense, their architecture has become a "model" of contemporary architecture in China, and many buildings in large, medium and small cities are "copied" from here.
As far as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou are concerned, architecture has played an important role in shaping the image of the city. From the single building to the building, and the area composed of buildings, we can read the spirit of the city whether we study the whole or analyze the debris. The culture of a city can be expressed by architecture. The charm of the ancient capital Beijing can be seen from the buildings left over from the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Zijincheng has an extraordinary momentum, and the central axis of the building complex coincides with the central axis of the city, which is spectacular. How many tragic stories have been staged here? Hutongs and quadrangles are strewn at random, simple and solemn, and also constitute the humanistic characteristics of the city, permeated with a sense of history. Since 1949, Beijing has experienced a revolutionary era. The Great Hall of the People, Revolutionary History Museum, Monument to People's Heroes and Chairman Mao Memorial Hall are complete political and commemorative buildings. The Tiananmen Square complex created the revolutionary image of the people and the capital with another symbol system. /kloc-The period from the 9th century to the 1930s was the climax of Shanghai's modern urban development. The Bund buildings and the bustling Nanjing Road street view fully demonstrated the charm of Shanghai. International Hotel, built in 1960s and 1930s, is 24 stories high. It was a building in the Far East at that time and became the symbol of Shanghai. After decades of silence,1990s, Shanghai rose again, and architecture wrote a brilliant page for urban development. Today, the new buildings in Shanghai have inner spiritual connection with modern buildings, and they tell the thoughts about modern metropolis in an international language. With its geographical advantages and frequent foreign trade, Guangzhou has developed rapidly in modern times. /kloc-From the end of 0/9 to the beginning of the 20th century, a large number of foreign firms, banks, clubs, hotels, churches, schools and commercial buildings were built in Guangzhou, including post-Baroque, neoclassical and coupon gallery, which introduced a lot of spatial information and outlined the outline of a famous city in southern China. From 65438 to the early 1980s, Guangzhou brought fresh modern style to China, and then Shenzhen Zhuhai became a place for architects from all over the world to visit and study. The new buildings in Guangzhou are concise and lively, with flexible layout, which is influenced by Hong Kong architecture. Hong Kong architecture conveys the latest information of contemporary world architecture, and the new buildings in Guangzhou convey the information of Hong Kong architecture to the mainland. Architectural culture is constantly changing and developing during travel. The new buildings in Guangzhou constitute a brand-new and dynamic spatial form, which highlights the opening characteristics of the city and indicates the arrival of a new wave of civilization.
The most important change in these three urban areas is the development of urban design. The era of single architectural monologue has passed, and the combination of architectural groups, landscape characteristics, urban functions and spatial structure, and human activity environment has become the focus of attention. Shanghai is facing an important historical opportunity to become an international economic, financial and trade center city. How to establish a central business district and several sub-centers in 2 1 century is particularly important. For example, the urban design of Shanghai downtown, the urban form design of Shanghai North Bund, and the planning of Lujiazui in Pudong. These plans and designs have excavated the characteristics of Shanghai. In order to make the construction of the new central area conform to international standards, the Shenzhen Municipal Government organized an international consultation meeting on urban design of the central area of Shenzhen, and invited international architecture, planning and design firms to participate in the consultation meeting.
If we look at urban design and architectural creation from the perspective of the city, we will feel that there are still some unsatisfactory places, and there are often many regrets. Cities and buildings should not be the art of regret. Their regrets will bring many problems and leave incurable wounds. For example, we don't seem to have a clear understanding of how new buildings in Guangzhou and Shenzhen create their own intentional space and how to awaken cultural memories instead of copying Hong Kong buildings, and we need further exploration. Shanghai's major urban design and architectural design projects are all selected and implemented in international bidding schemes, and some tenders even involve international architectural experts, which is really rare in China. However, there are several schemes, unfortunately, there are several wonderful schemes, which have fallen into Sun Shan because of the aging knowledge structure and outdated opinions of the judges. In addition, some overseas architectural design firms are well-known in China, but they have no academic status in the domestic architectural field. Their architectural design is a commercial operation, just sharing a piece of the action with China architects. For commercial purposes, they do not hesitate to adopt the "pseudo-Oriental" compromise design to win the favor of Party A, which lacks the new spirit of 2 1 century and will bring potential crisis to the city.
Although Beijing's urban construction has made great achievements and is exciting, it also has shortcomings in the United States and China. The first is the misunderstanding of "protecting the style of the ancient capital". 1In the mid-1980s, Beijing put forward the idea of "protecting the features of the ancient capital". 1993, the relevant leaders of Beijing put forward the slogan of "regaining the features of the ancient capital", but the measures were simple, that is, adding roofs, pavilions and hanging doors to large-scale new buildings, and all these were burdens. At the same time, it is an antique image, which is undoubtedly a satire on the quickness and convenience of modern traffic buildings.
Since 1995, for various reasons, the design of big roofs in Beijing has gradually decreased, but at this stage, there is another trend in Beijing's architectural design, that is, the so-called "western neoclassical style". For example, the idea of Henderson Center in East Chang 'an Avenue in Beijing is to advocate nostalgic style and strengthen decorative effect in design according to the current world architecture. This tower is a combination of China and Western styles, and its roof is square. In the design of a building in Beijing, the fa? ade adopts western European classical architectural style, and the arches and arched windows set off the luxury of the bank. The prevalence of this style indicates that there is another trend after the flood of big roofs. The essence of this kind of buildings is no different from the use of big roofs-blind imitation, whether it is imitating China ancient buildings or western classical buildings, is also a lack of confidence in creating national modern buildings and will lose its own characteristics. Under the trend of architectural diversification, it is not surprising that there are several so-called "western neoclassical buildings", but if the floor plans of important buildings in our city can only be passed by false decoration, it will not only be an ironic anecdote, which shows the seriousness of the problem.
Some twists and turns in Beijing's modern urban development have their historical reasons. 1950 In February, the architect Mr. Liang Sicheng and the planning expert Mr. Chen Zhanxiang wrote the Proposal on the Site Selection of the Administrative Center of the Central People's Government. His suggestion is to "determine the location of the administrative center of the capital as soon as possible, and please consider expanding the area between the old city and the new city in the western suburbs according to the actual requirements and favorable conditions for development, and gradually build it in line with the current financial situation." In order to preserve the old city and build a new one, Chen Liang and No.2 Workers made a detailed plan for the development of Beijing. Unfortunately, this proposal was not adopted in those years, which led to the mixing of old and new buildings in Beijing and the dilemma of urban construction. This is a historical regret left by the lack of foresight of the people concerned in those years. In the 1960s+1980s, when Beijing was discussing the features of the ancient capital, Professor Chen Zhihua of Tsinghua University published the article "How to Protect the Features of Beijing's Ancient Capital" in Guangming Daily on May 23rd, 1986. First, the protection of old urban areas and cultural relics buildings; One is the style of the new building. Only the old city and cultural relics are irreplaceable carriers of the ancient capital; Without these carriers, even if all high-rise buildings are buckled with large roofs with both form and spirit, it is by no means the requirement of the style of the ancient capital. The former editor-in-chief of World Architecture once wrote in 1986: Imposing the old "national form" (in fact, Ming and Qing Dynasties or Ming and Qing Dynasties) on architects and cities as architectural templates and standard components is contrary to the modern development direction of cities, and it is a constraint and imprisonment on architectural innovation and creative freedom. However, despite the opposition of people of insight, relevant people in Beijing tried to "recapture the ancient capital" with great fanfare by relying on big roofs and small pavilions. It was a big mistake to reject Chen Liang's suggestion in the 1950s, and it was another big mistake to reject Mr. Chen Zengsheng's opinion in the mid-1960s. These two mistakes left us with lessons and many regrets of urban architecture.
1950, Rhodes Murphy, an American scholar, wrote the book "Shanghai-the key to modern China". Through economic and geographical factors, he discussed the development and evolution of Shanghai from opening to the outside world to 1949, and expounded the key role of Shanghai's development in China's adaptation to the world trend and modernization. 1995, young scholar Shi's monograph "Beijing City Towards Modernization-Urban Construction and Social Change" was published. This work discusses the urban construction in Beijing from 1900 to 1928, and holds that the interaction between urban construction and social changes is the key to understanding the changes in modern Beijing. These two books, one of which has become a masterpiece, and the other has few readers, all give people enlightenment: it is time to study the development and evolution of contemporary cities in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, and analyze the achievements and regrets of urban construction in these areas.